In a world inundated with photo-shopped images of the female body, it can be hard for real-life women to accept their real-life bodies. Outside of the realm of the airbrush, scars, wrinkles, discolorations and uneven textures abound, often to the distress of the women to whom these “imperfections” belong.

“Every one of us is different and, at the same time, every body has one form or another and has its own essence and energy. There are many types of bodies, the same way there are many different kinds of stretch marks,” reads her Instagram (written in Spanish).

“Painting Yacine, Monica, and Roser, I observed their skin in great detail; the delicacy that existed in each of the women, the time, beauty, and essence that each of them had hidden. There are people with more stretch marks and fewer stretch marks; people with thicker and thinner stretch marks; people with darker or lighter marks; and in this, in the diversity, there is richness.”

Here are 60 times that Cartró, and other artists (mainly tattoo) have transformed stretch marks and other bodily imperfections into gorgeous works of art.

2) Humans are amazing

Cartró was inspired by her own stretch marks and her path to accepting them.

“Stretch marks are those marks that many of us have on the skin. I spent years hating them and trying to find a way to eliminate them, until I realized that if I did not accept them, I was not accepting myself.”

She spent years building her self-love, always trying to find a way to accept her body on a deeper level.

3) Nobody’s body is ‘perfect’

“After a few years I had started to work to love myself and to see and accept all that there was on my body. To accept all this is to accept your roots, your history, everything in it and, most of all, to accept yourself. Stretch marks are part of our essence, our moments, our lives, our stories and us. They are so beautiful that at times I don’t know how I hated them.”